


as though a flame

by Cywolf



Category: Naruto
Genre: AUs, Angst, Canon-Based, Fluff, SCIFI AU, crossovers, it depends on the oneshot, major character death only in ONE (1) oneshot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:08:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 11,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26185435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cywolf/pseuds/Cywolf
Summary: NejiTen-focused oneshots and standalone fics.Latest oneshot: Valentine's ChocolateTenten gives chocolates. Neji enjoys them. For #nejitenvalentine2021
Relationships: Hyuuga Neji/Tenten
Comments: 8
Kudos: 49





	1. Chapter Summaries

  * **Don't Make Me Wild** : a Ranma 1/2 inspired scrap. Tenten's parents arrange a marriage for her. She is less than pleased.
  * **All Souls' Nigh** t - Tenten has a run-in with a Hyuuga who wants to teach Neji a lesson.
  * **Puppy Love** \- Neji and Tenten turn into dogs. Scrap of fic.
  * **Tidestream of Autumn** \- They had wed in the winter. (angst, character death)
  * **Onyx After** \- Scifi AU with slave!Neji and mistress!Tenten. (AU, scifi)
  * **Under the Influence** : Hyuuga Hiashi vs. teenage shinobi hormones. (humor, cracky)
  * **Necessity** : Anko volunteers to help Tenten with her new mission. This distresses her greatly. (humor)

  * **Birthday Presents:** It's Tenten's birthday, and Neji tries to give her a present. (nothing but fluff. Literally.)
  * **Valentine's Chocolate:** Tenten gives chocolates, and Neji enjoys them. (humor, kinda fluffy)




	2. Don't Make Me Wild

“Tenten, darling, could you come here for a moment?”

Tenten glided into the living room, her steps automatically growing slower, more deliberate, as she moved from the white-lit freedom of the sun-roofed foyer into the cooler, darker formality of what her mother still insisted on calling the sitting room. The traces of taijutsu-stance that lingered on her out-of-battle movements faded away; her spine curved slightly, her hands dropped, her head was held at a humbler angle.

The slightly cold feeling in her stomach intensified as she saw not only her mother but also her father – not in his jounin uniform or the heavy-cloth coveralls that he used in the forge – in clean silks, formal-wear from the homeland their family had left three, four generations ago.

“Father, mother,” Tenten murmured respectfully.

They looked her over with approval – and if their honest love for their only child biased them slightly, they were objective enough to know they had done well in raising their off-spring.

“Tenten,” her father rumbled in the deep voice she loved so well. “How was your day?”

Tenten brightened, and her head came back up as she began to chatter about how her training had gone. Both she and her father grew excited as they talked about Tenten’s Soushoryuu, and how she was almost able to get the dragons to manifest themselves as weapons themselves, winds to aid the blades, teeth to cut. Her mother watched her family with fond tolerance for their enthusiasm.

Tenten was just explaining how she had managed to hit Neji with a nine-strike sansetsukon/tonfa combo, now dancing in the middle of the room to illustrate her moves, when her father, laughing as he watched, got up and clapped a warm hand on her shoulder.

“That’s my girl,” he said proudly, and Tenten thrilled to his praise. Her subtle apprehension was entirely forgotten as he led her to sit beside him, facing her mother across the low coffee-table.

“That’s my girl,” he said again, chuckling. “You do our family proud, Tenten. We have been warriors since before Konoha’s birth, and fine swordsmen and bowmen we have been too – but you, my lass, you make the blades dance.”

Tenten could not keep a wide smile from spreading across her features, but somewhere deep inside was wondering at this sudden outpouring of praise. Had someone died?

“Our family is known, Tenten, for our skill with weaponry. Only one other bloodline in Konoha is as known for it as we are. And you – you have proven that you will carry our legacy higher than it’s been. We hoped you might, but – now we _know._ And so, Tenten,” her father smiled, as her mother beamed and pressed Tenten’s now-limp hand between hers, “It is up to _you_ to unite the two foremost schools of weapons-usage in Konoha.”

Tenten did not feel cold in her stomach – she could not feel her stomach at all, just a big gaping hole. “I…I…what…?”

“You will marry Sasuke of Clan Uchiha,” her father told her, patting her on the shoulder. “Isn’t that a wonderful surprise? I bet you didn’t know you had such a fine young fiancé, did you?” He beamed, proud of himself for arranging such a wonderful husband for his daughter.

Tenten stared blankly at him for a moment, her jaw hanging open.

Then she bolted to her feet. “WHAT?!”


	3. All Souls' Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NejiTen - Somewhere, a father's ghost watched his son.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Theme: 'trick or treat!'  
> Genre: fluff, comedy, a little bit of the supernatural  
> Notes: Written for the October 2006 challenge at ten_squared.

Tenten stomped back home angrily, her high-running emotions having stolen her usual kunoichi grace from her movements; her footfalls jarred heavy through her bones. She welcomed the pain, let it add to the aches already in her from the recent sparring session.

She couldn’t decide whether she was more humiliated or angry from the experience – couldn’t tell if the tears she kept blinking back were more from rage or pain. Stupid Neji! She dragged a knuckle across her eyes, screwing them shut as she did so.

She glanced around; she was on the road outside Konoha, and no one was near her – Neji had long ago left the training-grounds, and she’d delayed for both her weapons and to keep herself from screaming at him if they walked back home together. She hesitated for a second, then swung from the road into the bushes, leaving a trail of broken bramble in her wake. She hurled herself through the bush until she stopped, panting, on the steep embankment of a fast-rushing stream. She sat down, curled her knees to her chest.

But she did not cry.

She laid her forehead across her knees and called Neji every insult she could think of – first running through the list in Nippon, then in Yong, then finding creative new combinations of the two. She was just finishing off a long string of adjectives for what Neji’s ancestors had been when a hand on her shoulder made her startle.

“Come now, miss. I’m sure they couldn’t have been _all_ bad.”

Tenten reflexively backflipped away, almost throwing herself into a wetting before she remembered to chakra-walk on the surface of the water. She crouched atop the stream and stared at the tall Hyuuga smiling at her from the embankment.

“Though of course a large majority of them _were_ …” He coughed. “Arrogant, blank-eyed, conceited sons of angry moon-drunk demons _,_ if I remember?” He quirked an eyebrow in a manner so similar to Neji’s that she blinked. “I don’t know enough Yong to translate it entirely, but I think I have the essence of it.”

Tenten blushed furiously. “I – I’m so sorry, Hyuuga-san,” she stammered, ducking her head so as not to meet those dancing silver eyes. “I – I meant no disrespect…”

A deep rumbling of laughter made her head snap back up. “Oh, come now. Don’t attempt to lie to _me_ , kunoichi. You meant every word – and good on you too! I have no doubt – knowing my relatives as I do – that the clan has earned the names at least five times over. Although I would ask, if you don’t mind, what exactly has brought this on?”

Tenten stared. The tall Hyuuga looked very much like Neji, and his uncle – though, considering how much some Hyuugas resembled one another, especially the ones from the core lineage, it was not that impossible. But the easy laughter and the cheerful eyes seemed so different, so _odd_ on a Hyuuga face…

“Y-you’re not mad?” she queried cautiously.

“Not at all,” the laughing man assured her, and something in his voice made her believe him. She walked off the stream onto dry land and carefully sat down next to him.

“Uhhh…hello. I’m Tenten,” she said, offering her name first as politeness dictated.

“I know,” the Hyuuga replied cheerfully. “I know Neji, you see, so I know about you. Oh – you can call me Hikaru, by the way.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Hikaru-san,” Tenten said, and found somewhat to her surprise that she meant it. She’d met some of Neji’s relatives before – all old forbidding men except for Hinata and Hanabi – but never someone like this man, who smiled.

Somehow she did find herself speaking to Hikaru, telling him about Neji, their sparring, the way he ripped her to shreds – literally and metaphorically – everyday. Usually she could nod and accept the real parts that were helpful advice and not take the insults too seriously. But today – for some reason – he had been especially harsh.

“…I’m not a _fangirl,”_ she hissed, almost forgetting she was speaking to someone, her fists tightening. “I train as hard as him and Lee any day – I train _with him…_ ”

She was so concentrated on her anger that she missed the disapproval that flashed over Hikaru’s face – directed not towards her but at the absent Neji, as was the slow headshake and the quiet, “Oh, Neji. What have you done, boy?”

Tenten had run out of steam and was now glaring impotently across the stream, eyes fixed but not actually seeing a copse of trees. She jumped at a hand on her shoulder, again. Her eyes widened at his conspiratorial grin.

“What d’you say we humble his pride a bit?”

“But…but…” Tenten stammered. “Aren’t you Neji’s…relative?”

“Yes. And _I_ think it would be good for the boy,” Hikaru assured her blithely. “So, you in or not?”

Tenten hesitated – but then she looked into those smiling eyes, eyes like how she imagined a happy Neji’s to be – and then she decided.

“I’m in!”

* * *

He brought her to a bamboo-choked wilderness that grew hard against the most neglected wall in the Hyuuga estate. Hikaru pressed her hand against a square patch of grey-colored stone, did some quick handseals. The stone glowed for a moment, warming Tenten’s hand slightly. Then there was a shiver of motion, and suddenly the wall next to her and Hikaru had simply rippled out of existence, exposing a paved tunnel.

“I’ve set it so the defenses know you, now,” Hikaru explained as he headed into the tunnel. “From now on, just set your hand on that stone and the doors will open for you.”

“…thank you,” Tenten said, a little shocked at the trust Hikaru was placing on her. Hikaru flashed her a shining grin, and set off down the tunnel.

There were long shallow shelves, slightly recessed into the walls, which glowed with a faint, steady light; Hikaru told her that these were filled with a phosphorescent moss. He pointed out certain gray squares of stone with glyphs carved into them, telling Tenten where they led: the kitchen, the hall of the council, the main courtyard, the Main House foyer, the _baths…_

“And this,” Hikaru whispered in her ear, and she shivered because it felt _cold,_ “—is Neji’s room.”

* * *

Hikaru was indisputably the mastermind here; Tenten was only there to fetch and carry. She didn’t mind, because the guy was brilliant. And she _did_ offer a few suggestions, such as using some of her more dulled caltrops in his bed _along_ with the itching powder, and using an oil-and-baby powder mixture above the door instead of just a bucket of flour.

A lot of their time was taken up by having to wrap Neji’s desk, chair, futon – and everything in or on them – in several layers of aluminum foil. Tenten estimated that they must have used up enough foil to create a wad about the size of a small child. Every separate thing – from pencils to pillows to the shuriken he kept in his drawer (ones Tenten had forged for him, she noticed) – had been individually wrapped.

And then Hikaru did something with the oils from crushed flower-buds to Neji’s clothes.

And Tenten hid all of Neji’s sandals and bandages.

And Hikaru substituted Neji’s shampoo with colored cream, and his toothpaste with fish paste dyed white with food-coloring.

And Tenten set up several traps.

By the time they were done, both of them were giggling (a Hyuuga, giggling!) hysterically. They crept back out through the tunnels, Tenten trying out her new access with wonder.

They parted ways outside the compound, Tenten waving cheerily to her new friend. She hoped Neji and she could hang around him more – maybe he would teach Neji to lighten up.

* * *

Neji did not come to practice for two days. When finally Gai, Lee, and Tenten (whose face kept twitching suspiciously) went to the Hyuuga compound to fetch him, they were confronted by a barefoot, wrapless, oily-haired, tired-eyed Hyuuga prodigy glowering at them. Gai was aghast; Lee and Tenten just rolled around – having literally fallen to the ground - laughing hysterically.

And when they managed to drag Neji out into the sun, Neji’s clothes – otherwise normal – began to _smell._ Not badly. Rather sweetly, as a matter of fact. A sweet, flowery, _powerful_ scent.

Team 7 passed them by. Sakura had asked Tenten what new perfume she was using; when Tenten had wordlessly – still giggling – pointed at Neji, Sasuke and Naruto had begun to smirk.

Neji had to deal with being known as “that boy who wears too much perfume,” for about three weeks afterwards. Even after that, the males of the Rookie 9 tended to snicker into their hands at random moments whenever he was around.

* * *

Hiashi was shocked to see the pranking his nephew had been subjected to.

He was even more shocked when some elders asked him, on the sly, if Hiashi had done it to humble the arrogant prodigy.

“Why under the sun would you think _I_ did it?” Hiashi demanded, torn between anger and utter astonishment that they would think him capable of such a thing.

The elders murmured apology; but one pointed out, “It _is_ very like the…high spirits you and Hizashi used to get up to when you were young. They even used the sun-activated flower oil.”

* * *

Tenten trained with Lee for two months, until she was sure that she could outrun Neji in a flat sprint, before she told him who had been responsible.

* * *

When the news got out – because news always spread among the Rookie 9 with the same speed as Lee on sugar – Naruto and Kiba burst in on Team Gai’s training grounds and prostrated themselves in front of Tenten, chanting, “We are not worthy! We are not worthy!” while Neji turned interesting colors in the background.

* * *

Several years later, Neji was showing his new fiancée around the Hyuuga clan compound – glowering jealously at several would-be-helpful cousins. Tenten only laughed quietly and nuzzled into Neji’s shoulder, smiling at the way he immediately relaxed. It wasn’t like she didn’t already know the layout of the estate, but she was enjoying the chance to take a walk with Neji. 

Later, after a dinner in her honor, Hiashi brought Neji and Tenten to a familiar-seeming square of gray stone. He was beginning to explain how the secret tunnels worked, when Tenten pressed her hand against the stone and skipped gaily into the revealed tunnel, telling them smilingly that Hikaru-san had already initialed her into the defenses.

Hiashi and Neji stared. Only the current head of the Hyuuga family was able to initial anyone into the defenses. Also, there was only one Hikaru in the Hyuuga clan – and he was a thirteen-month-old baby. The great-grandfather he had been named for – Hiashi and Hizashi’s favorite great-uncle, in fact – had been dead for forty years.

Neji ran after his fiancée, calling her name, while Hiashi abruptly remembered that Hizashi had always been able to do _anything_ that Hiashi could.

* * *

Somewhere, a father’s ghost smiled as he watched his son catch his laughing fiancée.


	4. Puppy Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted Nov. 11, 2006; because toboelonewolf requested fluffy crack. (Also, proof that I have always liked turning ninjas into canines.)

Neji flinched as a flicker of movement blurred at the edge of his vision. In the first place, he had lost the 360-degree of his Byakugan, so this peripheral vision was a little strange. In the second place, that flicker was his _tail...  
  
_ "Don't worry, Neji, Tenten," Sakura said above them, her voice sounding strange and loud to his sensitive hearing. "Tsunade-shishou said she'd have the antidote ready in a little while..."   
  
Neji could only emit a low growl. As in, could no longer make any sounds but a growl. The fact that Tsunade was working desperately on an antidote did not change the fact that one of Tsunade-sama's mistakes had - exploded - mixed with a Nara deer-antler combination and then something the lab was pulling up for the Inuzuka - and then -   
  
\- turned him and Tenten into dogs.  
  
He growled, voice rising, until Sakura took a step back, frightened. Neji's canine form had turned out to be massive, dark-furred and white-fanged and with the dominating lines of a large Alsatian. He stood easily three feet at the shoulder.   
  
In other words, he was large enough to scare even a kunoichi.  
  
Suddenly he felt a warmth pushing against him. He turned his head, to see what looked like a young shikoku dog shouldering against him. She snarled at him, baring her fangs.   
  
Tenten. Her coat on top was the same reddish-brown as her hair, shading into snowy white at the belly and legs, and she was much smaller than Neji, the size difference more pronounced than when they had both been human.   
  
Still she snarled at him.   
  
Reluctantly Neji backed off. Immediately Sakura fled, the door slamming closed behind them and making both their ears twitch. Neji's head dropped, and he let a low growl emanate from his chest...  
  
When suddenly Tenten began to chew on his ear. Startled, he pulled away from her - only to have her pounce him and begin to chew on his ear again. For a while this routine of pounce-chew-chase-pounce-chew-chase continued, until Neji realized that somehow earnest attempt to get away had become playful.   
  
Also, his tail was wagging.


	5. Tidestream of Autumn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They wed in the winter. 
> 
> NejiTen, angst.

They married in the year’s beginning, underneath a pale sky still wintry-blue - not that it could be seen, as the rites were enacted indoors. Outside the wind still nipped, and snow lay thin and damp underfoot – it had been one of the coldest winters Fire had ever known, although still mild by the count of other countries.

He said he didn’t want to wait for spring, and she had laughed and agreed – she would have agreed to anything he said, then.

Later, she lay in her husband’s arms and studied the white-gold ring around her left finger. Wedding rings and engagement rings were not a Konoha custom, but Neji had heard of it on one of their outland missions and had liked the meaning of it – the eternal circles, the gifting, the binding and the visible signs of claim.

He had given her a ring, diamond-chips set into a band of pale platinum metal, on one bright fall day; and Tenten had known what it meant. She had smiled so widely that her eyes closed – the better to hide the tears.

Later she’d hang her wedding ring on a thin chain around her neck, next to where her diamond-and-platinum ring already hung. Ninja, especially weapons-specialists, needed their hands free – but she liked the rings next to her skin.

That was what she _would_ do – but for now she placed it around her finger, watching it glitter in the moonlight.

Neji had kissed her hands when he had seen it.

* * *

Her first spring as Neji’s wife; and it seemed like every small event was a milestone. Feeling the days lengthen and warm, seeing the first small patch of wildflowers in their training-grounds (still theirs, despite the Hyuuga compound being open to them now) bloom – slipping a hand into her husband’s as they walked in the wakening forest.

It was a season of new life.

* * *

As the spring moved into summer, Neji had less and less time to spend with her. Hanabi was being prepared to step into her father's shoes as clan-leader; she was determined that her sister not be sealed when that happened. Their efforts towards eliminating the Main/Branch divide meant that Neji had much to do, and too little time in the days to do it.

Tenten understood. And as a Konoha jounin, part of their Weapons R&D department, she had much to do herself. There were new plans to develop, enemies’ weapons to reverse-engineer, missions to complete.

There was Lee and Gai, too, to make up a springtime of somewhat-neglect to. And they were there the day Tsunade stopped Tenten in the Tower and congratulated her on her pregnancy.

Lee congratulated Neji, at the top of his lungs, before Tenten had a chance to tell him.

* * *

Their first fall as husband and wife was a bright, cool season, with nipping winds and brilliant colors. The harvests had come in and the markets were filled with food. When they walked in the parks - they could not go into the deep forests anymore - the leaves crunched underneath their feet.

Tenten, heavy with child, stayed in her rooms more and more as her movements became curtailed. Lee and Gai visited often – more often than Neji, who was busy with the clan. But his visits were all the dearer for that, and Tenten hugged the memories of his careful tenderness to herself when he was not there.

She wore her rings all the time now. Without missions, there was no need to hide them.

* * *

They'd had a full round of seasons together - winter marriage; springtime as newlyweds; a summer and an autumn.

That, it seemed, was all Fate had allotted them: Tenten died as winter came over the land again, died birthing their twin sons. The younger died with her; the elder seemed very likely to join his mother and brother in the afterlife. It was only through the help of Haruno Sakura - apprentice of the Godaime Hokage - and the round-the-clock efforts of a full team of Hyuuga medics that he did not.

Though he would have liked to, Neji couldn't stay with his son the whole time - sometimes he had to leave. To talk to Hiashi. To talk to Hanabi or Hinata. To talk to Gai and Lee.

To arrange for the funeral rites.

* * *

He was called Shen, Hyuuga Shen, breaking the naming-traditions of the clan as his grandfather had with Neji. Moreover, he was given a foreigner-name, a name from the Yong empire his mother had come from. A few elders grumbled; but no one dared broach the subject with Neji.

When he was old enough, he was given a gift by his father: two rings on a thin golden chain. He never took them off.

* * *

_When the weight of a whole year's thunder_  
 _In the tidestream of autumn breaks  
  
_ -Algernon Charles Swinburne  
 _  
_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Kind of prompted by ten_squared's November 2006 theme, "First Fall" but by the time I was just half-way through it was already December. Originally posted in February 2007


	6. Onyx After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scifi AU, slave!Neji, heiress!Tenten. Originally posted May 6, 2007. (A bit more similar to our situation in 2020 than I would have liked it to be)

_i'm a slave to a Wheel_ _and there isn't any stopping_   
_what mistake could i have made?_   
_i'm a slave serving time for a life that i've forgotten_

\- Splashdown, Karma Slave (Titan AE soundtrack)

* * *

  
The year is 120 OA – Onyx After.

What's Onyx? No one alive asks that question – everyone knows what it means. It's what made the world what the world is, today. It's part of the things babies just breathe in, like learning what colors are and that milk is good and water is boring, so that by the time they reach school they're expected to know it and only study its implications and technical specs – but what it _is_ , they should already know. How could they not?

What's Onyx? Onyx is the plague that swept the earth – the _plagues_ , actually, different strains of bio-engineered virii and germs and bio-agents that the various factions of earth developed and unleashed upon each other. By the end of it, fully two-thirds of the planet's population had perished. The governments had begged for peace from each other and banded together in the United Earth Sphere – the only way they could have kept power, individually they were too weak to rule any longer.

Onyx – they called it that as a flashback to the Black Plague of the medieval period in earth's past, which had only killed one-third of populations in afflicted areas – and then only in Europe. In other regions its effects had not been as noticeable, which could not be said for Onyx.

What had Onyx left? It had left a significantly reduced population composed mostly of the privileged classes – the ones who had been able to afford the means of survival. It had left behind a unified government, who simply could not tolerate any dissension lest its fragile hold on power disintegrate. It had left behind vast strides in technology – most noticeably in the areas of biology and chemistry.

It had left behind a massive labor shortage.

It has been one hundred and twenty years since the last of the Onyx plagues were reverse-engineered and cured. It has been long enough that the memories of Onyx are fading – it is still a thing of fear and of caution-inducements, but no one living now (save for a very, very small number) has lost anyone or anything to Onyx. People live grouped up in domed, shielded, walled city-states called 'enclaves' – only within these carefully terraformed areas was it safe to live in relative comfort; the rest of the earth was in shambles. Onyx hadn't been the only weapon wielded in the last of the world wars; there had been chemical strikes, too, and huge land battles – minefields, and artillery strikes, and even here and there the irradiated wastelands from where tactical nukes hadn't been immediately destroyed by defense systems.

It would not have been possible to continue living in this world except for one thing: the creation of the Limited.

The Limited were creatures bioengineered to serve mankind. There were many kinds of Limited: four-legged things, six-legged things, winged things and so on, bestial-type creatures to carry and transport and move things; there were half-men half-animal creatures, who walked upright on two legs but were barely sentient – they were used for heavy labor; and there were those who looked almost human themselves. Of course, you could easily tell them apart – because all Limited, or Limits for short, were branded with 'control marks': strips of nanotech material burned right into the skin. The color and designs of the control marks proclaimed rank, ownership and type to any who cared to see; and it also allowed a Limit's owner to control him, either by inputting commands directly into the less developed-minds, or to force the obedience of the more sentient types.

Because of the vast strides taken in technology, it is possible to produce special effects and traits in these creatures – special genetic abilities coded into the bloodstream itself. These special creatures are known as Bloodline Limits, and they are highly prized.

And Tien ru Jian (called Tenten by friends and family) has just received one for her fourteenth birthday.

* * *

“Designation 012587, Bloodline-enabled Limited,” the salesman rattles off, bowing and scraping enthusiastically before the matriarch of the powerful Shan family, somehow able to keep his voice steady despite the frequent bobbing of his head. “Aged fourteen years – well-trained already, mature enough to take complex commands, but young so you'll have all the best years of his service ahead of you. We usually do not sell Limits so young, but this is obviously a special case – he's specially bred for such high-level positions, and of course you are the Shan....”

Jianghu sniffs audibly, which immediately silences the salesman. He trembles on the Persian carpet (a silky, luxurious thing preserved from Onyx Prior) as Jianghu gestures to her granddaughter to come closer. “Come here, Tian,” she orders in a thin, clear voice. “What do you think of your birthday present?”

Tenten steps from behind her grandmother's chair, looking over the boy – no, the Limit – kneeling in front of them. He is almost entirely bare, clad only in a white loincloth with decorative gold edging– she wonders why they did not just give him underwear, then realizes it is for aesthetic effect – trying to give the whole process a touch of the unreal, of the ritual.

He is very good to look upon, she concedes, her eyes wandering over his form. Pale-skinned, long-limbed, his hair long and dark, pulled into a low tail and restrained by a ring of beaten silver. He is not muscle-bulked, like many of the Limits – built for maximum strength – nor is he slender, effete, like the pleasure-slaves that many favor. He is lithe, his muscles clearly defined – bred for speed and grace as well as power. But she's seen others as alluring, some human, some Limits, beautiful boys and handsome men who crowd about her to woo, to court, to serve. He is nothing special...

Then he raises his head, and his silver eyes – wide eyes, deep eyes, tinged ever so lightly with lavender hues – catch the light, and Tenten loses her breath in a quiet gasp. Something like shock and something like remembrance and something like ice injected into her spine hits her, and she has to blink and look away.

* * *

They don't take out his old control mark – they just brand the Shan logotype over it, because his control mark is already one of the more efficient ones developed. And Bloodline Limits are rare anyway, there's hardly more than three or four like another at any given time, so the basic type/rank markings wouldn't apply to him in any case.

His brow is a billboard, carrying information for the world to see – a crooked cross and two straight lines arrowing across its horizontal axis, and a more elaborate, easy-read Shan dragon – black edged with silver – with its tail in its jaws, forming a circle around the crooked cross. The nanotech material glitters faintly when he moves his head and it catches the light.

Tenten also has the Shan dragon – not a ringed dragon, this time, but a dragon that twines about her left forearm, beginning at her elbow and ending with its long, fanged face on the back of her palm. It's a piece of quality work, with the silver antlers that signify a member of the actual clan rather than one of their employees or lower branch members, and an eye that shifts color according to what use she is putting it. It is the opposite of a control mark – it gives _her_ power, of myriad sorts – recognition by others, access to her family's deepest secrets, communications capability. It is also how she will, if there is need, access the control mark – any Limit with the basic Shan dragon branded on their body has to answer to her will. And her new personal Limit has her personal brand – the first to ever be so branded – which means only she can control him. 

She is sure, of course, that her grandmother took measures against that, and is actually capable of ordering him – it – around, but that is what they told her. And she plans on modifying the control mark until that is true, anyway.

* * *

“What is your name?” she asks him, later, when they are alone in her room and she has done the usual sweep for bugs and watchers. Her family actually respects her privacy, mostly – it's more of a punishment for being forgetful when her grandmother bothers to actually surveil her.

“My mistress may call me anything she desires,” is the immediate answer, delivered in a voice that is steady, and measured, and surprisingly deep for one so young. Tenten is impressed by the voice, but not by the answer. He is still in the loincloth, and Tenten lets herself enjoy the sight – but she already knows that this is the last time she will make him wear something so revealing. She mentally puts together a picture of the uniform she will have made for him – something with long sleeves and creased trousers, military in appearance. Something that covers him. The colors will be Shan colors, of course – black and silver.

“That's not what I asked,” she points out , slowly making her way to her bed – a unnecessarily large slab of temperfoam, set onto a recess in the floor and covered in sheets of Egyptian cotton. Stuffed animals take up what would be a significant fraction of the bedspace in any normal-sized bed, grouped carefully at the head of the bed, on top of pillows. It is the only childish touch in a room that is otherwise precisely neat, filled with technology and weaponry both archaic and modern, the only hints of color in a room otherwise white, grey, and black.

“...” The Limit's only response is silence, and Tenten sighs and flops backwards onto her bed. She grabs her favorite stuffed toy – a red-and-gold cartoony creature, something like a cross between a cat and an archetypal western dragon, which has onboard motors and sensors and an AI so that it can act as self-aware and lively as a pet animal – better, even, with voice-recognition software and sat-access to lower-level data-nets. Ryong cost as much as a small vehicle, and it was an old birthday present – much like how her new Limit is. It activates at her presence and cuddles up to her – she pats it on its velvety head and it purrs.

“Yue,” she decides aloud. “I'll call you Yue until you tell me your name.”

* * *

Yue is a multi-purpose Limit. He can do any housework she tells him to do – he can even cook, which is a third-tier function and enough to designate a Limit as 'specialized', although he has a limited range of dishes. He is very fond of tempura and herring noodles, both of making them and eating them, and it is one of the first hints of personality that Tenten discovers he has. He can also serve as her messenger and go-fer boy, running her errands with swift efficiency. He has limited medic-training. He has a sharp memory and – even better – an electronic to-do list coded into his control mark that she can modify at will, so he can serve as a living memo-pad.

But it is for his battle capability that Yue is so highly prized. His Bloodline-coded abilities include not only the usual enhanced senses, strength and speed – and those jacked up to the theoretical maximum – but other things, experimental things, things no one's thought of before. He has energy emitters built right into his skin – all over his body, but concentrated on his fingertips so that with a brush of his hand he can send an assailant to his knees, screaming in pain. His eyes are high-level scanners – infrared, ultraviolet, X-ray, telescopic, to see the threats to his mistress before they can harm her.

It's not only his inbuilt capabilities, but his high-level training that make him so dangerous. He has his own specialized hand-to-hand combat style, capitalizing on the energy emitters in his hands and his X-ray vision – using them to deliver fatal or disabling strikes to nerve clusters and pressure points. It is very effective. He's skilled in the use of every weapon Tenten knows of, even of some she's never heard of – which she hadn't thought possible.

He saves her life five times before two months are through – replacing the ten-man squad she had previously been scrupulously guarded by prior to Yue's arrival. She has more freedom now, able to head into areas previously designated as much too risky.

Yue gives her freedom.

* * *

“Train me,” she demands one day, sprawled on her bed and playing electronic games on the flatscreen set into her ceiling. Ryong is curled up beside her, eyes closed and mouth moving now and then in an entirely endearing, if also entirely animatronic, yawn.

“Mistress?”

She turns onto her stomach and just looks at him. “Train me in weapons. In fighting. So that if ever I were attacked and you weren't there ...”

“But mistress, I shall always be at your side. I am _your_ Limited, and...”

“No.” She shakes her head. “I mean, yeah, you're supposed to be there, but....things don't always go the way we plan, do they?” Her voice is wistful for a second, and Yue stares at her – but he does such things often, puzzled by his odd new mistress's whims and wants, and she's used to it by now.

“Train me,” she insists again. “I want to be strong. I want to be able to fight.” _I want to be as beautiful as you are, in battle._

* * *

Her father is surprisingly enthusiastic about the whole plan; he thinks it will help Tenten live longer, and any such plan is therefore approved automatically. Jian, the CEO of the Shan Group and doting father, is himself a highly accomplished martial artist, and he knows that in order to properly train, the Limited needs authority over his daughter.

This is what he tells them: “Yue, teach her what she wants to know. Tenten's a smart girl, and she'll learn best if she's interested. But once you step into the dojo - “ There's one in their house, of course. “Tenten, you are completely under his authority. Do you understand?”

Tenten answers yes.

The Limited finds it very strange, but adapts quickly enough after Jian – proving that the control mark does not, in fact, answer only to Tenten – punishes him for being too soft on his daughter. Moderate genetic modification – to eliminate genetic defects, susceptibility to diseases, and a more limited version of the enhanced physical abilities given to Bloodline Limits - is also sometimes given to heirs (and only heirs - such treatment on humans is even more expensive than Bloodline Limits) of the less conservative clans. Tenten proves nearly as quick as he, and even better with a number of weapons. 

(Tenten immediately resets and modifies the control protocols coded into the nanotech.)

Still, after a while, the Limited discovers that this forced equality between them is – enjoyable.

* * *

“Neji,” he says, suddenly, and Tenten freezes. She turns her head, slowly, from her persocom's holographic screen, which is frozen on the funny video she had just been insisting he watch. Her eyes rest on his, and both sets are very wide.

“Neji,” he says again, and he does not bow his head. “My real name is Neji.”


	7. Under the Influence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hyuuga Hiashi vs. teenage shinobi hormones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because of [sahara_storm 's](https://sahara-storm.livejournal.com/) icons, and because [ hyuugatenten 's Sims2Konoha crack is addictive. ](http://community.livejournal.com/nejiten/166424.html)
> 
> Originally posted July 27, 2007.

Hiashi was glad Neji and Hinata were beginning to socialize. Really he was. And he would not seek to curtail their going out for a perfectly innocent, perfectly safe little swimming party at the lakeside property of the Yamanakas. The other children - no, they were not children any longer - the other _young shinobi_ who would be there were wholesome young people, future clan-heads and future Hokages, successors to the Sannin and record-breakers. It was well for the clan to cultivate links with these future leaders of Konoha.

However...there was a distinct possibility that there would be alcohol at this gathering. Nothing too dangerous. Nothing the other parents would concern themselves over. An exuberant youngster - perhaps the Inuzuka boy, his daughter's teammate - would bring something to 'spice' up the party. Perhaps bright bottles of alcopop would be in the menu. But parents of shinobi teenagers such as Hinata's and Neji's peer group , unlike parents of civilian teenagers, did not much worry about their offspring's alcohol intake.

In the first place, shinobi had metabolic systems that made it very difficult to get drunk. In the second, Hiashi knew the ambitious young ninja had no intentions of flunking the twice-monthly bloodtests every ninja had to go through.

However....

* * *

The morning before the party, Hiashi made sure to draw Neji aside. Hinata, he had already noticed, had no need of this talk. In this matter, like in most others, she took after her mother. Neji, however - Neji was truly his father's son. And since Hizashi was just like Hiashi....

"Neji. You must not drink anything."

Neji stared at his uncle. "...yes, uncle, I already know, I am not the type to..."

"Listen to me, Neji, listen to me _very carefully_. Do _not_ drink anything with even a 'safe' amount of alcoholic content. In fact, if there is an open bottle of alcohol, either get away from it or hold your breath - do not breathe the fumes."

Neji's stare was beginning to turn rather dubious.

"Trust me on this. What is safe for other shinobi is not - is not safe for such as we. I am sorry but you seem to have inherited our - your father's and mine - our intolerance for alcohol. If you are not careful, you _will_ find yourself drunk. And when you're drunk you may end up doing ...strange things. Like - like singing. Or dancing. Or accidentally seducing the girl no one knew you liked because you were very careful not to show it and ending up in bed together where her father finds you and you end up married before the end of the month and he _still_ won't get off your case about it even after twenty years!" 

Neji's eyes were popping out now. "Y...yes, Hiashi-sama. I - I understand..."

"Good."

* * *

"...Neji, did you just - did you just GOOSE me?"

* * *

Naruto ran back towards the party, blue eyes wide and traumatized. "Nobody go near the hot-tub. _No one_ , got it? It's - uh - it's in use."

* * *

The next morning, the entire Hyuuga compound was awakened by an angry father - Hyuuga Neji, clad only in boxers, being hauled along behind him - demanding an immediate rescuing of his daughter's honor from the young, thoughtless, drunkard pervert son of the clan.

* * *

During the wedding - as they dodged Lee and Gai's attempts to hug them, as they had hugged everyone at the wedding so far - Naruto confided to Kiba he had insider knowledge of the whole affair.

"Neji knew what he was doing. The Stretch-and-Yawn move, the Splash War, backrubs, draw-her-in-for-a-cuddle, the works. Ero-sennin could have used him for a "Moves to Make in a Hot-Tub" diagram."

Kiba made approving noises as the two loudest males of the Rookie 9 leapt into a tree. Somehow both of them had managed to snatch a goodly number of finger-foods from the wedding-buffet in the process.

"But more than that," Naruto proclaimed triumphantly as soon as the Beasts of Konoha had gone away, "I saw him spiking the punch himself."


	8. Necessity

"You wanted to see me, Hokage-sama?" Tenten's voice was respectful, but more curious than anything – the days of her blind hero-worship for the female Sannin were over, though she still held Tsunade in high esteem. The Hokage thought of previous days of starry-eyed adoration slightly wistfully, then got down to business.

"Yes. Your team is due to leave on a surveillance mission in a week?"

"To the Country of Stone, yes," Tenten affirmed.

"There's been a change in circumstances. Now, we've just received intelligence that indicates your target will be exposing himself to…opportunities…" In ninja-parlance, this meant a chance to do what they would – usually kidnap or assassination. "And you are the only one who can take advantage of these situations."

Tenten felt a pleased flush creeping up her cheeks. For once… _for once…_ She wasn't one to complain – she _liked_ not having to be in the frontline, having time to plan and target – but there was no denying that Neji's Jyuuken and Lee's taijutsu were much more attention-grabbing than her weapons-skills.

But now, apparently, her expertise in weaponry would be the lynch-pin for the mission's success. Hah!

She was already plotting which weapons would be best for either case – assassination or kidnap scenario? Quick cuts or poison? Blunt trauma, perhaps? Would she need long-range precision attacks, or close-quarters hidden weaponry? She'd pack kunai, shuriken, a bo-staff, her favorite tonfa…perhaps a pair of tanto – should she bring her new six-foot naginata? She kept half an ear on Tsunade's words as she happily flipped through a mental catalogue of her weapons.

"Your B-Class surveillance mission has been upgraded to an A-Class capture mission. The target is to be subdued and brought back to Konoha for interrogation, preferably before he makes contact with Sound shinobi. The capture should be quiet, and the target should be as unhurt as is possible. Your team-leader has already been sent the details of this revised mission. You, however, need to receive specialized training to prepare you for your part of the mission."

Tenten raised a thin eyebrow, something she had picked up from Neji and now did with as much cool aplomb as the white-eyed shinobi.

Tsunade ignored the silent question and called out to the outer office. "You can come in now."

Tenten turned around just in time to see Mitarashi Anko walk into the door.

* * *

"NO! I WON'T ACCEPT THIS!"

Three hours later, in Anko's apartment, Tenten was throwing a temper tantrum. And in perfect accordance with her personality, her flare of temper was accompanied by huge amounts of steel being hurled through the air. Thankfully she had enough presence of mind to aim outside the apartment – the tree just outside Anko's window now sported a three-inch-thick covering of bladed steel. Anko paused to admire the geometrically-perfect placement of the kunai.

Tenten's eyes were like two dark flames in her face. She could not remember ever having been so angry – no, not even when Lee had used her favorite katana to chop firewood, and ended up ruining the blade forever; or when Neji had _not stopped_ making caustic remarks about her match with Temari of the Sand until Naruto had thrashed him well and truly.

And why shouldn't she be? Here she was, all ready to use the weapons she had devoted life and blood to – ready for the chance to show how simple weaponry could do as well as exotic taijutsu styles or fancy ninjutsu – and they told her that it wasn't what they meant at all.

No – they meant for her to become exactly the sort of simpering, shameless, weakling person she had always detested – the type of person who couldn't rely on good honest steel and had to resort to baser ways of getting her way.

_They wanted her to wear a dress._

When her eyes strayed to the scraps of fabric – really, did it even merit being called clothing? – arrayed on the bed, her anger flared anew. She launched a barrage of shuriken cleanly through the window, not even watching as they thudded neatly into the paper-thin spaces between the kunai, shuriken, and other bladed weapons already embedded into the tree.

Anko was regarding the younger kunoichi with knowing, amused eyes. Unbeknownst to, well, anyone, she rather liked the fiery little weapons-user. She saw a lot of herself in Tenten (well, herself before the snake-bastard came along): spirited, decisive, and ambitious – and ruthless in a way that many kunoichi could not be. She knew, for example, that Tenten poisoned the edges of her weapons regularly, and that as a genin her kill-rate was one of the highest recorded – a trend she bid fair to follow as a chuunin.

She also knew how to get Tenten to acquiesce.

"Oh, I do agree," she drawled. Tenten's eyes flicked to her suspiciously.

"I mean," Anko continued, uncoiling from where she leaned on the wall with the sinuous grace of her summons, "I _told_ Tsunade-sama that you weren't the right type for this mission."

Tenten really wanted to relax. Anko seemed to be on her side. But something in Anko's tone and stance and most especially in those dark, glittering eyes made her feel like a cat with its back arched and bristling. And claws out.

"Why not reassign the mission to Kurenai's team, or better yet Asuma's, I asked the Hokage. Hell, send your apprentice out on her own, I said." Anko met Tenten's wary eyes with the most evil grin imaginable. "After all, _those_ teams have actual kunoichi, not just a girl who wants to run with the shinobi."

Tenten's face blanched completely white, and for a horrible moment Anko thought she had miscalculated and she would now have to deal with the sobbing, broken remains of a shattered-ego kunoichi.

 _Damn_ it, she didn't deal well with crying.

But then the next moment, red rushed into Tenten's face, her eyes flashed, and Anko knew she hadn't miscalculated at all.

"WHAT!" Tenten screeched. A pair of wickedly-curved daggers all but materialized in her hands – not consciously drawn, Anko thought, but rather an ingrained reflex – and the young weapons-user began unconsciously whirling them by their hafts.

"I AM _TOO_ A KUNOICHI!" She began to advance on Anko, murder in her eyes. The insult had cast Tenten's usual caution to the fiery winds, and the fact that she was chuunin and Anko a high-ranked, infamously-dangerous tokubetsu-jounin registered not at all.

"Okay then," Anko drawled, so at ease and grinning so widely that Tenten checked in confusion. "So prove us – _them –_ wrong."

Tenten glanced once at the dress, then back at Anko. She came to a decision almost visibly.

"Alright. Alright. Let's do this."

* * *

Anko fought the urge to cackle hysterically. She had _known_ she was going to win, yes – she had _not_ known that she was going to win _this big._

It turned out that underneath her billowing clothing, Tenten was all long curves and clean, elegant lines – due equally to good genetics and to a strict regimen of physical training, trying to keep up with Konoha's best taijutsu users. Immediately Anko seized the dress and hurried to a tailor, returning with what she called "Something more suited to show off that body!" and what Tenten called "OMG there's even LESS fabric than before WTF."

Of course, just draping a body – however drool worthy – was not enough for the purposes of kunoichi.

Tenten balked at the training Anko proposed to her. Actually, she leapt screaming for the window, and Anko had to chase her for fifteen minutes over the rooftops of Konoha before snagging her back.

Anko, encouraged by her previous success, presented the training as a sort of taijutsu exercise – can _you_ move in such a way as to hint that you had no bones whatsoever – and also hinted that the other kunoichi could probably do it. Tenten knew that it was untrue at least in Hinata's case, but there was the nagging suspicion that Sakura and Ino not only _could_ move like that, but that they practiced daily in front of the mirror.

Tenten _hated_ being short of anyone else.

So she agreed. She _knew_ Anko was manipulating her but once she had introduced those ideas to her, she could not help but throw herself into it.

And it showed, as within a week Anko had her able to move in such a way as to cause the liquefaction of men's wits; to speak in a low, alluring voice, whispering sweet nothings _or_ things less sweet and more sensual (what was more difficult was learning not to turn bright red when she did); how to do her hair, and how to undo it when necessary, in such a way as to make men's eyes pop out; and a hundred other little details necessary to command a room's attention immediately .

Tenten complained, but caught on very quickly. The only thing she could never learn to do was how to look at a man with bedroom eyes – they were always snapping rather than smoldering. Anko just hoped that by the time men were close enough to look deeply into her eyes, they would have been so dazzled by her body and her moves to mistake sparking rage for deep-buried desire.

* * *

Team Gai left on their mission a week after Tsunade had summoned Tenten to her office. Tenten had packed her new dress and accessories dutifully, but was much disgusted by the necessity – she'd had to leave several weapons behind, including some really nice knives, to make room.

When they returned, Tenten was grumbling continually underneath her breath and stalking a good distance away from the rest of her team. Gai was sniffling, mourning the fact that his little girl was all growed up now (although, of course, still youthful) with many tears and wistful sighs. Neji and Lee were simply dumb, as unable to speak as to detach their eyes from their teammate. (The target was being hauled along, trussed up in rope, with a very distinct imprint on his cheek blooming in spectacular bruise-colors - not a handprint but a fist)

Anko grinned widely. Her work here was done.

Also, Kurenai owed her fifty ryou.

* * *

_you look so good it hurts sometimes_

-John Mayer

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original AN: one-shot inspired by a picture of the kunoichi at the beach recently posted at the Tenten FC. Tenten is wearing a really stylin' bathing suit/dress kind of thing, and we joked how she could wear it to a formal event.
> 
> originally written Nov. 25, 2005.


	9. Birthday Presents

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted: March 9 2006, Tenten's birthday!
> 
> Old Notes: Entry for the NejiTen Fated Heaven forum contest whose inspiration happened to be on Tenten's birthday. Wrote it in about 4 hours, skipping lunch (I've just realized) because it was fun!
> 
> New Notes: Heavily inspired by my other OTP at the time, Gundam Wing's Heero x Relena.

Tenten was never bored when training with Neji. To be with the prodigy meant constant challenge and constant striving, adrenaline-rush sharpening the world around her as her body and her mind struggled to keep up with what he demanded of her. It was frankly wonderful, the way he pushed her - pulled her - shoved her until she was left, breathless and weary and utterly exhilarated, on the other side of what could have been her limits.

It wasn't as if they only ever sparred, either. Their training sessions were as varied and unpredictable as they were challenging: children's games made dangerous, like hide-and-go-seek through miles of forest laced with traps; king-of-the-mountain with live steel and on actual mountains; playing tag with explosive ofudas. Sometimes they raced each other, setting rules like bearing burdens, or absolute stealth, or sensory deprivation. Or they might simply sit and argue about famous battles and classic textbook mission profiles, picking apart every aspect from arms to logistics to technique. They would set themselves exercises in urban combat, or desert survival, or jungle warfare.

And today, Neji had announced, they would do target practice.

Tenten paused in her limbering-up exercises to stare at him. "Excuse me?" It was sort of like being told that their Jounin exams would consist of counting from one to ten.

Neji, silent and unperturbed, simply vanished into the forest. Tenten sprang after, landing beside him in a large forest clearing mere moments after he stopped.

The clearing was beautiful, a natural thing rather than artificed like the training-grounds of the various teams. It was obvious that it was seldom visited; the grass was thick underfoot, not trampled and crushed, and the tall redwoods around them bore no scars. At the verge a little waterfall, hardly more than a strong trickle, gushed merrily over a boulder into a small, clear rock-pool.

But it was not the beauty of the scene that caught Tenten's attention. Rather, it was the unbelievable number of balloons floating in the clearing, somehow tethered to the ground. There were easily half a thousand balloons bobbing gently in the breeze, all the colors of the rainbow and more besides. There were round balloons, large balloons, shiny balloons shaped like animals, balloons with words on them – even a silver balloon that looked like her favourite fuuma shuriken.

Tenten gaped. She tried to talk, but somehow words that made sense were hard to find, just like the equation of ' _Neji plus training equals a helluva lot of balloons'_ was hard to make sense of.

Neji's voice cut off her stammering questions. "Target practice," he said again, "I'll release the balloons – they're chakra-anchored," he explained, anticipating her unvoiced curiosity, "And you'll have to pop them all before they get above two hundred yards."

Suddenly he turned and flung a kunai at a nearby tree, the blade quivering as it stuck end-on in the wood. "That's the marker, two hundred yards," he said, turning to look at her. "Ready?"

Tenten was already holding more shuriken and kunai than the instructors said was safe. "Let 'er rip," she growled, grinning behind the senbon held between her teeth.

Neji called back his chakra, and the balloons began to float towards the sky. Tenten was gone, flashing into the air above the balloons, and raining down a storm of steel; Neji smiled, small and quiet and secret, and watched her.

* * *

She was almost finished in half a minute; it wasn't the targeting that was difficult, or the number, but the time limit set by stopping them before they reached the two-hundred-yard line. She set a fuuma shuriken to soaring around the clearing, razing all balloons in its path.

Unseen behind her, Neji silently flung a senbon up into the trees, severing the string of a green balloon taped to a tree-branch.

Tenten turned a somersault, throwing two kunai; they not only got the two balloons in their trajectory, but ricocheted off each other in mid-air so that they popped the last three remaining balloons. Tenten landed on the ground triumphantly, catching the fuuma shuriken as it soared past her. She grinned and turned to Neji.

Who only grinned back at her and pointed upwards, to a single green balloon floating into the sky.

She cursed and threw the shuriken in the same breath, even while wondering – in the back of her mind – at the uncharacteristic grin. The fuuma shuriken screamed as it sped towards that last green target, barely nicking it edge-on…but that was enough. The balloon popped.

And something white, and small, and shapeless, began to hurtle towards Tenten's head. Hurtle _fast._ Reflexively, she threw everything she could her hands on at the unknown missile; a barrage of kunai, scythes, swords and knives soared upwards.

Neji's grin vanished.

Tenten, her adrenaline-rush beginning to fade, blinked as snow began to float gently down on her. No – not snow – _stuffing!_ She opened her arms in time to catch several torn pieces of cloth and plush falling from the sky, shrieking a little as a white head rolled off the pile and fell to her feet.

She had chopped up a teddy bear.

_A teddy bear!_

Her arms full of mutilated stuffed animal, she turned to Neji.

"Um." She had never seen Neji awkward before. "Happy Birthday."

Then he ran away.

Tenten stood there, surrounded by her weapons and the remains of hundreds of dead balloons, holding a decapitated teddy-bear, and tried to figure out what hell had just happened.

* * *

_'Stupid, stupid, stupid!'_ Neji cursed himself, pacing inside his room in the Hyuuga complex. He had fled there for refuge after the morning's…debacle.

_'You idiot! She's a weapons-master - of course she's going to dice up something that looked like it was going to hit her on the head! Especially after she just practiced hurling sharp pointy objects at everything that moved!'_

Neji turned sharply on his heel, and stomped back across the floor. He was so distracted that he stepped on a discarded scroll and nearly slipped – he, Hyuuga Neji! He began to swear as he regained his balance. It was more at himself than at anything else.

' _And then, and **then** , o prince of nitwits, you don't explain why the hell there was a teddy bear hidden inside the balloon, you just run off! Good going, genius, she must think you've gone nuts!'_

He clenched his fists. He'd thought he was so _clever_ , hadn't he, setting this up like a training exercise, hiding the green balloon so that it couldn't be seen against the leaves, having everything fall into place. He thought it would be funny, seeing her surprise when her present landed in her arms.

He thought he'd see her smile at him.

And to top it all off, he'd _run away from her._ Neji bit back another flood of swearwords when he remembered that. See if he would take advice from his cousins again!

' _Stupid Hiiro! Give her teddy bears, he said. It worked for me, he said. I'm going to kill you!'_

Much assured by this thought, Neji stomped through his door – actually _through_ , ripping the paper screen apart by the mere force of the chakra aura he was emitting – in search of a spar.

* * *

It was sunset before Neji left the Hyuuga complex, having received a thorough beating – and some acid words of advice – from his older cousin.

He clutched another teddy bear – brown, this time – and a card. This time he would hand it to her straight, no clever plots, no running away. Just happy birthday, and I'm sorry I was an idiot, and if she didn't keel over from shock or punch him in the face, he'd invite her out for dinner.

He wasn't really paying attention as he walked to her apartment, his feet having long since memorized the oft-taken path. He was busy thinking of her possible reactions, so he didn't notice the way people went silent as he walked past, the double-take Hanabi performed, the way Ino and Sakura bounced up and down and squealed, the snickers from Kiba and Naruto and Sasuke, as the sight of the Hyuuga prodigy with a teddy bear in his arms registered on them.

All he thought about was Tenten.

* * *

He stood in front of her apartment door for a whole minute before he mustered the courage to knock. The sound of his knuckles against the steel-reinforced wood – ninja had strong doors – was loud in the twilight silence.

No one answered.

A little shiver of something that might have been disappointment, relief, or fear – or maybe all three in one – twisted up his spine. Maybe she wasn't home. Maybe she was avoiding him.

Maybe she was celebrating her birthday with someone else.

He got out the key she had given him and opened the door.

She _was_ there, after all – but asleep, her head pillowed on an outflung arm. Her posture as she slumped over the table would give her back-pains. He stepped closer, checked as he saw what was on the table beside her sleeping head.

A small white teddy bear.

How had she…?

Her hand was clasped loosely around one soft white leg – beyond it was a sewing kit, left in the disarray of use. He didn't think he'd made a sound, but she startled awake, sitting up sharply and – why did his heart contract at this – clutching the teddy bear to her chest protectively. Her eyes took a moment to adjust to the darkness and find him.

"Neji!"

He took another step closer.

"I'm sorry," they said at the same time, startling themselves into silence. Tenten plunged in first.

"I'm _so_ sorry, Neji," she said, sounding almost – it couldn't be; not _Tenten_ – tearful. "You…you…it was so _sweet_ , and then I had to go and be a _barbarian_ and rip Shiro up…"

' _Shiro?'_ "I'm the one who should be apologizing, Tenten," Neji interrupted, his voice soft. "I startled you, and I did not take into account your exceptional combat reflexes. You had every right to attack an unknown object and I…" he trailed off, and then thrust the brown teddy bear in front of him like a shield. "I brought you another one to replace…"

"No!" Tenten's vehemence startled herself as much as it startled Neji. She hugged the white teddy bear to herself more tightly. "I won't _replace_ Shiro. He's…I… _you gave him to me!"_

She paused, and repeated herself in a whisper. "Don't you see, Neji – he's…precious. That's why I couldn't leave any pieces in the clearing - why I had to try and fix him. _You gave him to me._ "

She looked up at him shyly, defiantly, searchingly.

And Neji, after a moment of startled silence, smiled.

And suddenly, she didn't remember moving, she was hugging him, and he was hugging her back, the two teddy bears crushed in between their bodies. They stayed that way for a long, warm, perfect moment, Tenten smiling so hard that her face hurt and burying her face into his shoulder so that he wouldn't see the foolish, foolish tears that _insisted_ on leaking from her eyes…

He bent his head and whispered into her ear, his breath making her shiver. "Happy birthday, Tenten."

"Do you know," she said, half-laughing, still nuzzling into his shoulder and eliciting her own shivers from him, "that I'd forgotten about that until you said it in the clearing?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have just realized how often I come back to the theme of Neji and Tenten giving each other birthday presents.


	10. Valentine's Chocolate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tenten gives chocolates, and Neji enjoys them.

Every Valentine’s Day since the formation of their team, Tenten gave a little box of homemade chocolates to Gai, Lee, and Neji. The chocolate truffles, which increased in complexity and impressiveness as the years rolled by, were always delicious. Tenten was a rather dab hand in the kitchen. It turned out that blacksmithing skills like pouring and watching heat levels translated well to cooking and baking; and of course her knife skills were on par with, if not actually exceeding, most professional chefs.

The boxes, wrapping, and truffles were also scrupulously identical, something Tenten took more pains over than with the actual truffles, because if anyone thought she took more pains with Neji’s, she would die. She weighed the chocolates to make sure each box had the exact same amounts, down to the gram. She had once spent an hour anxiously examining the chocolates to see if Neji’s did, in fact, have more shaved coconut than Lee’s did. The ribbons and wrapping were always exactly cut and tied and positioned in the exact same ways.

Gai and Lee always thanked her sincerely, sweetly, and at the top of their lungs. Lee would devour his on the spot, exclaiming excitedly over the flavor. Gai would save his, to show off to his Eternal Rival, and always marking his receiving of the gift as a point in his favor.

Neji would thank her, politely, and put the little wrapped box away in his pack. Along with, Tenten supposed, the chocolates of all the other girls he got them from. He had never reached the fangirl-level of Sasuke Uchiha, in the year below theirs, mostly because of his Branch status, but there were enough.

Oh well. Maybe one day she _would_ make his chocolates extra-better.

* * *

Every Valentine’s day, Neji would closely examine the little wrapped boxes Tenten brought before she even handed them out, using his Byakugan to peer into the paper bag she always brought them in, trying to see if the chocolates she gave Lee differed in any way from his and Gai’s.

He would also mount watch on her every Valentine’s day morning, watching from the moment she left her house to the moment she arrived at their training grounds - or at the Gates, if they were leaving on a mission, as had happened once or twice on Valentine’s. He was always cheered that she never gave chocolate to anyone but her team, even if it would be better if she had only the one box.

* * *

Neji always waited to eat his chocolates in the compound, in one of the public areas where there were no Byakugan-nulling seals, and always making sure the prettily-wrapped box of homemade truffles was in some way visible in his pack as he went home, a corner peeking out or outright carrying it in his hand. He would then consume them with exaggerated (for a Hyuuga) enjoyment, knowing his less-lucky cousins were watching with their Byakugan.

Neji always looked forward to Valentine’s Day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Valentine's Day 2021. #nejitenvalentine2021


End file.
